Word.ws English Dictionary

like a bull in a china shop

like a bull in a china shop adjective: clumsy, aggressive, without care, concern or self-control.

Adjective

like a bull in a china shop (not comparable)

  1. (simile) Clumsy, aggressive, without care, concern or self-control.
    • An awkward man in society is like a bull in a china shop, always doing mischief.1855, Robert De Valcourt, The illustrated manners book: a manual of good behavior and polite, page 89

Adverb

like a bull in a china shop (not comparable)

  1. (simile) Clumsily, aggressively, without care, concern or self-control.
    • Some comparisons in general use partake of the humorous and satirical, as when one man is said to comport himself “like a bull in a china shop”.1869, Every Saturday: a journal of choice reading, page 108

Questions about like a bull in a china shop

What does like a bull in a china shop mean?
Like a bull in a china shop means clumsy, aggressive, without care, concern or self-control.
What part of speech is like a bull in a china shop?
Like a bull in a china shop can be an adjective or an adverb.

Words near like a bull in a china shop in the dictionary

  1. like a blue-arsed fly
  2. like a boss
  3. like a bowl in a china shop
  4. like a bug to a zapper
  5. like a bull at a gate
  6. like a bull in a china shop
  7. like a bulldog with a bone
  8. like a bump on a log
  9. like a cat in a strange garret
  10. like a cat on a hot tin roof
  11. like a champ

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: like a bull in a china shop (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-like a bull in a china shop.ogg.

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